So Cold
by bemusedbicycle
Summary: While moving through the forest in Neverland, Emma is forced to relive every painful moment in her life, while everyone else watches. One-shot Captain Swan angst.
1. Chapter 1

She watches as the thick, grey smoke slowly crawls towards her across the forest floor and she is transfixed. It ebbs and flows and twists in the moonlight and she tilts her head to the side, blinking slowly. The back of her mind is screaming at her to _move_, _run_, _avoid_, but she takes a step closer to it.

The smoke touches the tips of her boots and it pulsates, light flashing like lightning in the coils. Her mind goes peacefully quiet and she sighs in relief.

"Emma?" David is looking at her with apprehension at the edge of the clearing. Everyone else has disappeared into the dark forest; her and David were at the back of the line. She shakes her head and tries to take a step towards him, but she doesn't budge. She looks down at her legs and panic hits her hard and fast, the silence in her mind interrupted as her conscious comes roaring back.

_Move. Run. Avoid. _

"Emma!" She looks up and David is striding towards her. She can dimly hear crashing in the underbrush but her mind is becoming hazy and its hard to focus. Dread settles like a lead weight in her stomach and she blinks sleepily.

The smoke is curling around her legs, slipping up and around her. She can _feel_ it through the fabric of her jeans and its so _cold_ but there is something else, something that is pulling at her and –

She blinks back up to see everyone gathered around her. They're talking, arguing really, and she wants to tell them to stop, for God's sake _stop already_, but she can't get her voice to work. She closes her eyes and hums to herself, feeling the smoke climb higher and higher. She shivers and this isn't so bad, its kind of nice actually, the quiet, not having to listen to –

The smoke pulsates and pushes around her and she stumbles backwards. The voices in the clearing stop abruptly and she opens her eyes to see the smoke has formed a sort of halo around the group. Its rising, higher and higher, completely closing them off from the forest around them. The smoke folds itself and then becomes flat. Her mouth twists in confusion and then quite suddenly, shapes begin to take form in the reflective surface.

"Oh God." Her breath hitches and her hands clench as Graham's face, clear as day, drifts across the smoke. A sharp pinprick of pain slices through her chest and she blinks rapidly as she recognizes the look on his face. The smoke shifts and moves and suddenly shes in the image too. He's holding her face and she can _feel _it, feel his thumbs brushing against her cheekbones and she wants to die because this is too much, _too too_ much, and everyone can see, damnit. The smoke is playing the scene like a movie for everyone to just sit back and watch and she knows what's coming and it's too much.

_"Thank you."_ He whispers and its so loud in her head, echoing through her and the pain in her chest amplifies because she hasn't thought about this in so long and it hurts just as bad. She watches in the smoke reflection as he seizes and stumbles and she is holding him, shaking him, screaming for him to come back.

And then the figures shift and morph and she is looking at a five year-old version of herself, small and scared, huddled under a bed. She hears Mary Margaret gasp but she can't focus on anything but the pain twisting her gut. She watches as the small version of herself is pulled abruptly and she can feel a hand on her ankle, tugging, scratching. She slams her eyes shut as screaming echoes around her but the images continue behind her eyelids, bright and vivid and real.

_"Tallahassee, baby. We're almost home."_ Neal's voice echoes through the clearing and in her head and she groans as white hot pain rockets through her. She pants, hands on her knees as the images flash through her mind rapidly - Neal kissing her goodbye, waiting in the alley way, the cop with his gun, cold metal sliding around her wrists.

She's older and she is running down the street, her bounty having slipped her somewhere in this maze of a city. She turns and she is suddenly decked, pain blossoming across her cheekbone.

She's small again and she is in her bedroom, her first real bedroom, and her foster parents are watching as she packs up her little suitcase, tucking crayons and a stuffed bear into it. Her foster father reaches into the suitcase and removes the bear, placing it back on the bed. _"But why do I have to go?"_

The images speed up as she falls to her knees and she can't see anything but the smoke and the things it reveals. Her hands grip the sides of her head as she struggles to breathe through it but she can't, its too much, it hurts so bad and it just keeps coming.

Alone in her jail cell, holding the pregnancy test, feeling like the world is closing in around her.

Sitting by herself in a crowded cafeteria, teenage girls making whispered jokes and laughing loudly.

A dislocated shoulder as she lies on her back in a parking lot, teeth grit against the pain.

Henry looking pale and small in a hospital bed.

She whimpers and rocks, folds in on herself as the assault continues. She can hear screaming, but it sounds far away. Coldness rises within her and she struggles to push it back. She wants to open her eyes, to see anything but her nightmares projected in her mind, but she can't. The smoke is too strong, feeding off of her, getting stronger.

She feels something shift and the images falter slightly. A warmth settles itself against her back and she shivers. She is panting as she struggles to breathe and she is just so tired. She groans as the images push in again harder, faster, the screaming louder.

"Bloody hell lass, fight back." It's a rough growl in her ear and she starts. The images falter and she gets a glimpse of the forest floor before grey smoke wraps itself over her eyes and she is tugged under again.

Giving birth to Henry, a police officer standing stoically behind her, her legs struggling against the cuff restraints.

Something snakes around her and pulls her tight and she gasps as warmth starts deep in her chest. It pushes back against the cold and she clenches her hands. She can feel leather beneath her fingertips and she clenches harder, anchoring herself, clawing back to the light.

"That's it." His lilting voice is soothing and she clings to it desperately, blinking her eyes rapidly as the smoke starts to pull back. The images are fading, the coldness seeping out of her, leaving behind hollowness.

She comes back to the clearing with a startled gasp, blinking her eyes open. It's eerily silent, the smoke twisting around itself and retreating rapidly back to the undergrowth. But she hardly notices it because she is half seated, half straddled against Hook's lap and his arms are wrapped tight around her, his legs splayed out awkwardly beneath them. She looks at him with wide eyes, her fingers releasing their death grip on the sleeves of his coat, but he doesn't relax his grip on her. He peers at her carefully, his blue eyes dark and concerned.

She blinks and takes a shaky breath as she stares at him and the concern in his eyes fades into understanding.

"I-" She starts, but a choked sob cuts her off and she can't stop it. She can't stop the pain that is crashing over her in waves and she tries to push it back but its too much. Another sob sputters out of her and then she is completely breaking down, her tears hot and fast, her body shaking uncontrollably.

Hook carefully places his hand on the back of her head and guides her face to his neck and she doesn't even care if this makes her weak, doesn't even worry about what this might mean, because she feels like her chest is splitting open and he smells like the sea and the feel of leather under her fingers is calming, so she lets herself be guided closer to him, lets herself be adjusted in his lap, lets herself be comforted.

She tucks her face against his skin and sobs. His hand runs through her hair and across her back, whispers murmured soft and sure. He shifts and she grips him tighter, her sobs becoming more hysterical, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears. Years and years of abandonment and pain are washing over her and she can't stop.

He jostles her in his arms and she is vaguely aware that they are moving, that he is carrying her, but she doesn't care. She can hear whispered conversations around her, but her sobs drown everything out.

They eventually slow to a stop and she feels him sit and tug her close. Her sobs have ceased and she quietly breathes him in, her hands unclenching from his coat and instead slipping under it to wrap around his waist. He tenses and then relaxes, his hand massaging the back of her head. She doesn't move her face from his neck.

"You alright?" His voice is quiet and rough and she sighs against his skin, a shaky exhale as her eyes drift closed.

"No." She says simply and his hooked arm pulls her closer, if possible.

"Aye." He says, understanding floating over her with a sigh. "But you will be."

**-/-**

And much, much later, after she jolts awake under his sleeping form, she pretends not to notice as her father cracks Neal across the jaw with a swift and unrelenting punch.


	2. Chapter 2

Companion piece to **So Cold**. Killian tries to bring Emma back from the darkness, getting a little reminder of his own pain in the process. Captain Swan angst and comfort.

* * *

When he hears David's panicked shout, he knows something is wrong. He turns immediately in the forest and charges back to the clearing they just walked through, stomach churning, hand going to his sword out of reflex. When he bursts through the trees, Snow and Neal quick at his heels, Regina following somewhat reluctantly behind, his blood runs cold.

He can see the thick grey smoke slowly wrapping itself around Emma's legs and he knows exactly what it is. His gaze snaps to her face as he steps closer and he knows it's already setting in. Her bright eyes are clouded and unfocused and she doesn't even seem to notice their approach. David is chanting her name in a steady beat but she pays him no mind, her blonde hair swinging in her face as she watches the smoke wrap around her.

There's confusion as the group begins to bicker about what is happening - Neal muttering something about _dark magic_ and Regina finding offense and David just wanting to snap Emma out of it - but he pays it no mind because his eyes are fixed solely on her and he knows it's only a matter of time before-

She looks up briefly and the smoke pushes and pulsates - like a living, breathing thing - spreading out and surrounding them in a solid circle. The bickering stops and he watches as blurred images slowly come into clarity on the shimmering surface.

He tries to look away, not wanting to invade on her privacy like this. He knows she has no control over it, knows she would never choose to reveal these things like this (_or at all_, his mind reminds him). But when the images become clearer and when she whispers a desperate and broken _"Oh God."_, he can't help but watch.

His stomach drops when a man appears across the smoke and it drops even further when her face becomes visible – so open and honest and _happy_ – it's distressing to him that it looks so foreign on her face. And then the man is crumbling to the floor in a hauntingly familiar way and she is sobbing, broken and ugly and he never knew, he never _knew_-

The image wipes and then reasserts itself, a small blonde girl that can only be her trapped under something, green eyes wild with fear. He feels a growl rip through his throat when she screams, desperate and anguished. She is so _small_. How could anyone hurt something so _small_?

The images change again and he is looking at a much younger Baelfi – _Neal_ – and they are sitting in a car together. He strokes her face and kisses her and says something about _Tallahassee_ and then the images shoot forward- Emma alone in an alley, her hands being cuffed behind her back by a man in a uniform.

Hook's eyes widen and he shoots his gaze to Neal and the man's face is all the confirmation he needs.

But he is distracted from his rage when Emma falls forward, her knees landing in the dirt, hands braced on either side of her head. She rocks back and forth and the smoke twists around her, pulsating and moving faster. Panic seizes his chest as he realizes the smoke is consuming her- feeding off her pain and growing stronger.

Ignoring the images flashing against the smoke, he steps forward. David's gaze snaps to him, eyes red rimmed and glassy. He nods in encouragement and Hook looks back down to Emma just as she lets out an agonized scream. He winces as the sound goes straight through him and drops to his knees behind her.

His hand and hook hover over her back uncertainly as she groans, hands clawing at the sides of her face. Red, raw scratch marks mar her delicate skin and his hand lands on her back soundly as he leans forward, chin against her shoulder.

"Bloody hell lass, fight back." He can't help the gruffness of his voice, the anger laced beneath his words because he _knows_ she can do this. He _knows_ she's a fighter- has seen it, felt it- on numerous occasions.

Her breathing becomes higher, tighter and his arms snake around her waist, acting on instinct. Her shirt rides up against her hip and as soon as his skin comes in contact with hers, coldness shoots through his limbs. He gasps as the forest disappears around him and he's on his ship, Milah lying motionless in his arms.

_No._

He shakes his head hard, eyes closing. _Emma. _He needs to be strong for _Emma_.

He opens his eyes and pulls her against him, fighting the coldness in his veins. She shuffles, pushing him, then bracing herself on his arms. He sees clarity in her eyes for a brief moment and then she's tugged under again, the bright green turning to a dark grey.

Her hands fist and clench and he can feel the strain in her limbs. He strokes the exposed skin at her hip and she shudders in his arms just as he is tugged under again. He is small and alone, shivering under the docks. His father told him to meet him here. Where is he?

_Where is he?_

Emma screams again and he snaps back to the present. She is clawing at his arms, shifting restlessly in his lap. She is fighting it, he can feel it. He holds her tighter and leans in close.

"That's it."

She lets out a shuddering breath and jolts, frantic eyes meeting his. He relaxes fractionally as he feels the ice cold leave his body but then she is breaking in his arms and he tenses. His hand comes to the back of her head, guiding her closer.

She gasps and heaves and breaks as he does his best to just hold her together. He can feel the wetness of her tears on his neck and his heart breaks just a little bit more because she's held this in for far too long.

David leans down to him and Hook should be embarrassed about showing this level of intimacy and vulnerability around so many people, but he can't bring himself to care, because she needs him, needs _him_, and that trumps everything else.

"We need to move." He whispers, but makes no move to take Emma from his arms. Hook nods and shifts, trying to get in a better position to leverage both himself and Emma up, but she lets out a panicked noise, clinging to him harder.

He soothes her quiety, fingers tangling in her long hair. She relaxes and he stands, jostling her in his arms. She continues to sob brokenly as David clears a way in front of them. Mary Margaret grips his hand tight and Hook can see the tears falling down her cheeks.

Somewhere along the way her sobs quiet, but her grip doesn't lessen. They make camp and Hook slips down against a tree, the burning in his muscles terrible, but unwilling to let her go. She sighs against his neck and her hands release from him. He takes a deep breath and prepares to for her to pull away, but her hands merely twist and slip under his coat, bringing her body closer to his. He tenses at the rush of warmth, but then relaxes, heart hammering in his chest.

"You alright?" He whispers.

"No." She responds and it might be the first time she's ever been so honest with him. He smiles tight and lets his hand dance along her hair. It's a start.

"Aye." And he sighs, letting his head drop back and eyes drift closed. "But you will be."

And later, much later, he blinks awake, face buried in her neck, arm slung loosely around her waist. He tenses at the intimate position and makes to pull away but her hand scratching through his hair stops him.

"Stay." She whispers and she doesn't sound so broken anymore. "Just stay."


End file.
